


The Sandstorm

by VampireBadger



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Bleeding Effect, Drabble, Gen, Mentioned Character Death, Modern Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-06
Updated: 2017-11-06
Packaged: 2019-01-30 05:20:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12646914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VampireBadger/pseuds/VampireBadger
Summary: Spoilers for the modern story in Origins, up through the third modern segment.Layla's been having syncnhing with Bayek lately. The bleeding effect, on the other hand--that's still working just fine.





	The Sandstorm

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies in advance for any typos, it's late here.

After Dee's death, it gets much harder for Layla to synchronize with Bayek. Her thoughts are disjointed and jerky—she wants to be out of here, hunting the people that took her best friend away from her. Vengeance. She's never wanted that before, but maybe she's never had a reason to want it before. Or maybe, after so much time in Bayek's mind, it seems almost natural.

There has been a death. A killing. Those responsible have to die.

So no matter how hard Layla tries to focus, she can't completely drag her mind away from her real body in the real world. She tries to be Bayek—it had been so easy before—but with Dee dead, that's impossible. She can still feel her own body lying in the animus, sort of superimposed over Bayek's. Layla desynchs, again and again and again, frustration mounting each time, until finally she tears the needle out of her harm and goes stomping to the front of the cave where she screams out her anger and helplessness into the sandstorm.

She can't stay there for long. Even a thirst for vengeance is nothing compared to the strength of the storm in front of her. Layla kicks at a dead soldier—a dead Abstergo agent—and then gags at the stench and the sick feeling of her foot connecting with his rotting guts. She's lost track of the time she's spent in the animus, trying to force her way into Bayek's mind, but clearly it's been long enough for the bodies to start to rot. But that would mean days at least, so why is the sandstorm still raging outside? Is this the same storm that had blocked her in before, or a new one? Is she just missing the good weather, or have the gods themselves conspired to keep her from her vengeance?

With one last, frustrated shake of her head, Layla turns back to the cave and storms back down. She's all ready to go back to the animus and try again, but as she comes close she realizes someone's already sitting there. Layla stops a little ways away, squinting to try and see who it is. The man—definitely a man, she can tell by his broad shoulders and general bulk. His posture is casual, leaning forward with his hands clasped in front of him.

Layla creeps toward him, hidden blade at the ready. She's sure she's still hidden, that she hasn't made any noise. But just as she comes close, the man looks up and straight at her, smiling. Something in Layla—those too brief memories as Aya, maybe, or… no, this reaction is all her—warms at the sight. She stands straight and steps forward, staring.

It's Bayek. He stands as she moves, posture open and welcoming. "Layla," he says. "I've been waiting for you." He smiles like he's greeting an old friend, even though he shouldn't be here, she shouldn't be seeing him, he shouldn't know her name. But it's the most warmth and life Layla's seen since she got here, even if she knows he must be nothing but the bleeding effect.

Dee would have freaked if she knew what Layla is seeing right now, and Layla knows the smart thing to do would be to just ignore him—but she's always been comfortable with a little bit of chaos. She can't just ignore Bayek now that he's here. After all this time living his life in the animus, it's as natural as breathing for Layla to step forward, and greet him like she's known him for years.

"I didn't expect to see you here," she says, and it's an odd relief to see the way his eyes seem to laugh as he jerks his head toward the animus.

"Only in there," he says. "No?"

"No," Layla says, giving him an only slightly sarcastic smile. "You're in there, too."

He turns, following her pointing finger, until he sees the place where his mummy lies in its sarcophagus.

"You're a very morbid person, Layla," he says, wandering to the coffin and glancing inside. Layla follows him. "Has anyone ever told you that?"

"My dad," she says. "It always pissed him off." Loads of things had pissed him off.

"You should be kinder to your father," Bayek tells her. She meets his gaze for a second, but can't maintain it. He's a father without a son—she's a daughter that just doesn't like her father. Layla's never thought of her relationship with her parents as selfish before, but suddenly it seems pretty obvious. For once in her life, she can't think of anything to say. So she changes the subject.

"I can't synch with you," she tells him. "Lately, it's just been… I can't make it work."

"Because you're distracted," Bayek says. "I'm sorry about your friend Deanna."

Layla makes a nervous gesture with the blade on her arm. "How did you know about Deanna?"

Bayek reaches over to put his hand (with the same blade strapped to his wrist) and holds her still. "Careful," he reminds her. "We only have nineteen fingers between us as it is. Don't go slicing off any of yours."

"Right," Layla mutters, wincing. She'd lived that memory with him—she knows how painful it is to lose a finger.

"I'm in your mind, Layla," Bayek reminds her. He leans back against his coffin, arms crossed. He looks almost disturbingly comfortable there. "You learn from me and I learn from you. It's not all one way—I guess you could think of me as your subconscious, if you want."

"I don't," Layla says sharply. She hops up onto the sarcophagus lid, just to prove to him that she's not squicked by this either. Bayek rolls his eyes at her, and for a second Layla grins. Soon enough, though, she's serious again. "I know you're not real, but it's not… there's no one else to talk to here, since Dee…"

Something flashes in her, red hot and almost painful. Maybe it shows in her face, because Bayek sighs and leans over, nudging at her shoulder. "I know what you're thinking," he says. "You want to kill the people that killed her."

"Soon as the sand dies down," Layla mutters. Her hands are clenched into fists on her lap. "As soon as I can leave, I'm going after them, and they'll pay for what they did to her. Just like the men that killed your son."

She's expecting support, but Bayek only looks down at the ground. By now, Layla feels like an expert at reading his body language, and he looks… yea, he absolutely looks guilty. "There is no sandstorm," he admits after a long, awkward pause.

"Yea there is," Layla insists. "I saw it just five minutes ago."

"Layla," Bayek says quietly. "I'm in your head." He turns to look her full in the face. "I wanted you to stay, and since you're bleeding already I just… triggered my memory of a bad sandstorm. It's clear out there."

"You… wanted me to stay? That's creepy, Bayek." Feeling slightly more squicked than she had thirty seconds ago, Layla slides off the sarcophagus and looks up at Bayek. She hates the turn this conversation has taken, it's too much of a reminder that Bayek's not really real, that the only thing left of him is the rotting corpse inside the sarcophagus.

"You're going after vengeance," Bayek says. "Because of me—"

"Because of Dee."

"Because you got in the animus and saw me doing the same thing to Khemu's killers," Bayek says, raising his voice. "But Layla, I lost so much more than just my son. My vengeance stole everything from me that I had left." He stares at her, so intensely that Layla finds herself staring back out of sheer stubbornness. "Sandstorm or no sandstorm," he said. "Don't go. Stay in the animus and see the rest."

But she's so angry. And she's had so much trouble with synching… Layla frowns up at him. "Don't leave," she said, and it sounds almost like a question.

"Ey," Baye says. He gives her a little tap on the side of the head. From anyone else, Layla would have been pretty severely pissed off, but from Bayek it doesn't matter. "I'm in here now—Im not going anywhere."

He sits next to her while she plugs back into the animus, and the last thing she feels before she loses everything is his unreal hand on hers.

**Author's Note:**

> I am so ready to write Layla. :) I've been waiting five years for a new modern protagonist to write into fics, I'm so glad we finally have one :)


End file.
